Highest Rated Comments


SuneeraMadhani26 karma

I think that being a crazy type A driven entrepreneur who wants to fucking do something great has made me work hard to get to where I am not bc i am a girl. However, i have seen countless instances of sexism through out my career. From being told no constantly by everyone starting up, to fundraising 8M and convincing investors that female CEOs can also run fiscally responsible growth companies to fucking being told that having a baby will make my company plummet bc my work ethic will change! Literally, during my series A time i had two slides in my pitch deck addressing my pregnancy and my plan after the baby.

SuneeraMadhani23 karma

Glad you asked. My dad was a serial entrepreneur - i actually commented on another question in regards to all the different businesses he had- one of the businesses in the late 2000’s was real estate and he lost everything when the market turned. He filed for bankruptcy in 2012. I started Fattmerchant in 2014 and actually raised money by applying to every pitch competition i could go to and get FM name out there. I ended up winning almost 200k in prize money (OH YEAH!) and the business grew from a startup competition idea to Orlando’s sweetheart startup. We got a ton of amazing press.. forbes , fast company, tech crunch, Huffington - you name it. During this time, the bankruptcy case was getting settled for my parents and my brother and I offered to pay the settlement amount personally from our own pockets to close the case out for our family. The article was super hurtful and sucked because my dads bankruptcy had NOTHING to do with fattmerchant but the sentinel twisted the title and story in a way to say that we were “dragged” into the case (and even put a picture of my wedding on the front cover.) If you read it and the case is public - you will see that Fattmerchant has nothing to do with it but they titled it “ Fattmerchant Founders” parents trouble woes on the founders .. so yeah that’s what that was. Sucks and really shitty. We were just trying to help our parents out and they made it sound like our company was going bankrupt. #fakenews

SuneeraMadhani22 karma

Hi thanks for your question! My day to day starts around at 530- sometimes 545 depending on how many times I hit snooze. I go to the gym before my family wakes up bc its the only way to get some me time... home by 715. My 15 month old daughter wakes up around 730 and we spend the morning together and always have breakfast as a family. From there I head to the office and the day is cranking! Meetings by the half hour- usually try to break away for a 15 min walk if the weather is nice to facetime Mila. Most evenings I have events to go to. Like tonight, I am speaking at Demo Day for Starter Studio (a local startup incubator) However, I'll get home in time to grab my daughter and head to the event with her. Days are jam packed but I try to ensure every hour is intentional.

SuneeraMadhani22 karma

I was actually working for a large payment processing company when i came up with the idea for Fattmerchant - i was sick of seeing merchants be nickle and dimed and never understanding what fees they were being charged and why . like most people - I am also obsessed with all things subscription - Netflix, Birchbox, you name it i have it. Why couldnt merchant services be a subscription too? I took the idea to my bosses and they laughed in my face. Thats when I knew that i had to take this and do it on my own. I started Fattmerchant on the basis of transparency and with the simplicity of a subscription service. I purposefully chose strategic investment partners that shared by vision - i like to call it “smart money”. It’s not worth the investment if your new partners don’t share your same values and vision.

SuneeraMadhani20 karma

you're right, the importance of my story isn't 100% based on the fact that i'm a woman. but i believe very strongly that women need people that they relate to in fields that are dominated by men to show them that they can do it too! if i can show girls and women who might be hesitant about starting their own business that it's possible, i'd be so happy !